183/ Making Home in Exile: Stories from the New Syrian Diaspora w/ Wendy Pearlman

The Fire These Times

For episode 183, Leila and Elia are joined by Wendy Pearlman to discuss her newest book, The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora as well as her previous book We Crossed a Bridge and Trembled.

Note that we recorded this episode on November 9, 2024 – just weeks prior to the ousting of the Assad regime. As such, a few small details of the conversation are now ‘outdated’, however the conversation we had and Wendy’s books still remain extremely relevant and important to understanding the Syrian revolution, war, and its present day.

The Fire These Times is a proud member of ⁠From The Periphery (FTP) Media Collective⁠. Check out other projects in our media ecosystem: the (newly aired!) Mutual Aid Podcast, Politically Depressed, Obscuristan, and Antidote Zine.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Wendy Pearlman’s bio

• The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora by Wendy Pearlman

• We Crossed a Bridge and Trembled by Wendy Pearlman

• Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War by Leila Al-Shami and Robin Yassin-Kassab

• Nostalgia by Svetlana Boym

• Resilient: Broken by Elia Ayoub

• Syrian Association for Citizens' Dignity for reports on Syrian refugees, forced returns to Syria, and other stories and analyses of the Syrian political context

• From the Periphery’s newly released Mutual Aid Podcast

For more:

• Wendy is on Bluesky and has a website

• Leila is on Mastodon and Bluesky, and check out her website

• Elia Ayoub is on ⁠Mastodon⁠, IG, ⁠Bluesky⁠, and he has a newsletter

• The Fire These Times is on IG and YouTube and has a website⁠ ⁠

• From The Periphery is on ⁠Patreon⁠, YouTube⁠, Instagram, and has a website⁠

Transcriptions: Transcriptions are done by Antidote Zine and will be published on The Fire These Times' transcript archive.

Credits:

Hosts: Leila Al-Shami, Elia Ayoub | Guest: Wendy Pearlman | Music: ⁠⁠⁠Rap and Revenge⁠⁠⁠ | TFTT theme design: Wenyi Geng⁠⁠⁠ | FTP theme design: Hisham Rifai⁠ | Sound editor: Kaylee | Team profile pics: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Molly Crabapple⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Episode design: Aydın Yıldız | Producer: Aydın Yıldız

From The Periphery is built by Elia Ayoub, Leila Al-Shami, Ayman Makarem, Dana El Kurd, Karena Avedissian, Daniel Voskoboynik, Anna M, Aydın Yıldız, Ed S, Alice Bonfatti, israa abd elfattah, with more joining soon!

The Fire These Times by Elia Ayoub is licensed underAttribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International